Loss of a Good Name

Be wondrous wary of your first comportment. Get a good name, and be very tender of it afterwards, for it is like the Venice glass, quickly cracked, never to be mended, though patched it may be. Take along with you this fable: Fire, Water, and Tame went to travel together. They consulted that, if they lost one another, how they might meet again. Fire said, “Where you see smoke, there you will find me.” Water said, ‘When you see marsh and low ground, there you shall find me.” Fame said, “Take heed how you lose me; for, if you do, you will run a great hazard never to meet me again; there is no retrieving of me.”